Kenneth Burke on
Shakespeare, Edited by
Scott L. Newstok (Parlor Press, 2007).
Introduction and
Note on the Text: Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare begins with
an introduction written by editor Scott Newstok. It attempts to articulate the importance
of Burke's writings on Shakespeare.
Summing up his purpose, Newstok writes, "[The introduction is] an
attempt (perhaps necessarily frustrated) at 'placing' a critic whose writings
resisted such placement throughout his life" (xvii). Newstok hopes his opening piece will
"induce readers to turn (or return) to Burke's Shakespeare essays and discover
for themselves a remarkable voice, for which no introduction can ever serve as
a substitute" (xvii-xviii). Newstok
details various responses to Burke, as well as the ways in which Burke uses
specific strategies and stylistic devices when discussing Shakespeare. The introduction is an overview of the
project, as well as a justification for its existence.
The
"Note on the Text" details Newstok's compilation methods, noting chronological
ordering of the essays with the exception of the first chapter (li). Annotations and editing decisions are
addressed, especially in relation to Burke's spelling and frequent allusions. Newstok specifically mentions the
addition of lecture transcripts, and his decision to include text that was
crossed off of typed transcripts (lv).
A.
Burke
begins with a statement that details what his lecture will not be about.
1.
He
will not "attempt reading Shakespeare's works as the story of his private life"
(3).
2.
Even
if there is a real life basis for Shakespeare's characters and plots, it is
always tailored to the requirements of fiction in plays and sonnets. As Burke puts it, "Whatever the story's
possible grounding truth, it gives ample signs of having been developed in accordance with the rules
of a highly complicated stylistic game" (4).
B.
Having
separated Shakespeare's biography and works, Burke goes on to point out that,
in spite of the distinction, Shakespeare's plays do have a self-involved
quality to them (4).
1.
Burke
believes you can refer to the works as either "suicidal or narcissistic" (4).
2.
Citing,
Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and Timon
of Athens, he uses examples to illustrate his argument.
a.
In Timon of Athens, "When Timon rails
against Apemantus, he is really railing against an embarrassing copy of
himself" (4).
b.
In Antony and Cleopatra, there are several
references to self-willed death, which Burke cites specifically, noting Act,
Scene, and Line numbers (5).
C.
Moving
to a different example, discusses the relationship between Shakespeare's life
and works using The Merchant of Venice.
1.
In
an anecdote about working on the play with a student, Burke tells the audience
about ideas of justice and mercy and their importance in the bible and the
play.
a.
He
argues, "In a highly patriarchal society such as our Western Culture was built
upon, we tend to think of justice as essentially sever and paternal, of mercy
as maternal" (6).
b.
Given
this concept, it is surprising that, after all the characters in The Merchant of Venice are paired up
based on romantic interest, the only two left are Shylock and Antonio.
2.
Shylock
wants justice, and Antonio wants mercy, but their pairing does not conform to
the cultural stereotypes of those two concepts.
D.
Having
noted the curiosity, Burke begins a discussion of the historical period in
which Shakespeare wrote.
1.
Burke
argues that Shakespeare's plays show the influence of his time period.
a.
Shakespeare
wrote at "the turn from feudal thinkingÉto the kind of social and political
strivings that would involve the attempts to produce a central monarch" (7)
b.
The
attitude stemmed mainly from the War of the Roses, which pitted one royal
family against another.
c.
Nationalism
and capitalism both accompanied the move towards central authority.
2.
Burke
encourages his audience to use this historical knowledge when examining the
motivations present in Shakespeare's works.
3.
Burke
argues that Shakespeare responded to these life themes not with verbs or
adjectives but with characters. He
used the "terminology of drams."
The exigencies of the time were transformed into a series of
relationship between dramatis personae.
4.
The
brilliance of Shakespeare's approach is that drama anticipates the unfolding of
ideas via "acts" (8). In theory at
least, Shakespeare's method allowed him to articulate positions and anticipate
outcomes via fiction.
E.
Moving
forward from his assessment of Shakespeare's works as a response to historical
circumstances, Burke next differentiates himself from Shakespeare biographers.
1.
Burke
argues, "People who write lives of Shakespeare necessarily work out the steps
from the standpoint of their own development, which may or may not happen to
coincide with Shakespeare's" (8).
Biographies focus too much on the personal and not on the historical.
2.
Rather
than discuss Shakespeare personally, Burke says he will attempt to discuss him
"in principle" (8).
F.
Burke
argues, "Shakespeare produced the illusion
of characters" (9). His
characters embody principles more than they embody personality, and Burke
believes that they were created based on the feelings Shakespeare wanted to
inspire. Shakespeare was especially
adept at using characters to promote the desired audience response.
1.
Shakespeare's
mastery of his craft is a complex topic.
In part, it is difficult because drama necessarily needs a "moral"
(9). That is, a character in an
effective play needs to be "excessive" in some way, and when a playwright
constructs a character in that way, he or she is necessarily warning against
something (9).
2.
Yet,
Shakespeare's mastery shines through his plays in spit of this. Burke argues that where
a.
The
most important implication is that Shakespeare had to write lines that both
furthered the plot and described the background. His characters' lines had to be both
functional and decorative.
b.
The
decorative purpose of his lines (and thus an element of his skill) is
diminished when a Shakespearean drama is produced in a modern setting with
elaborate sets and effects. In such
settings, some lines feel excessive rather than functional (11).
c.
Burke
uses the "action"/"motion" distinction in order to address the problem more
fully. He argues that modern actors
must mark time by doing things like lighting cigarettes ("motion") in order to
compensate for lines that do not allow them to participate in "action." "Action" is dictated by the scene and
not by the lines themselves.
d.
Burke argues that Shakespeare was a
master at uses lines to produce "action."
G.
Having
discussed Shakespeare's skill, Burke arms his listeners with a list of
questions that should be asked when evaluating Shakespeare's plays (12).
1.
What
kind of tension is being exploited?
2.
For
what kind of effects?
3.
What
kind of situation is used to exploit the tension?
4.
What
kind of prime character is best adapted to a particular excess?
5.
What
subsidiary characters are needed?
6.
What
kind of images best lend themselves to this particular enterprise?
7.
To
sum up: How does the play point the arrows of our expectation (13)?
H.
Burke
argues that it is the fulfillment of expectation, not surprise, that makes a
play enjoyable.
1.
He
cites the conclusion of Othello to
support his point. The value of
Othello's death as surprise is diminished after the first encounter. From then on, it is satisfying only as
the fulfillment of audience expectations (13).
2.
Burke
sums up by arguing, "Thus, when inquiring into the structure of Shakespeare's
plays, we are well-advised to begin, even with the first few lines, asking
ourselves just how the dramatist is shaping the patterns of our expectation"
(14). It is through the building of
expectation that the audience is drawn into the plot.
I.
Elaborating
on Shakespeare's brilliance, Burke attempts to explain Shakespeare's range of
knowledge with an intriguing theory.
1.
Burke
associates Shakespeare with Plato, asserting the possibility that Shakespeare
had already "experienced the need for the word before he ever heard it so that
(as in Plato's theory) learning was more like "remembering" something already
known but forgotten, than like the accumulating of novelties" (14).
2.
Burke
explains using an example from Hamlet,
arguing that rather than associating words with meanings and definitions, he
associated them with dramatic situations and personalities (15).
3.
Burke
claims that Shakespeare was a master of associations, arguing that he could
have won the kind of game where one invents a description of an unknown object
and then has to justify that description in terms of a revealed, actual object
(16).
4.
All
of this leads to the conclusion that Shakespeare encountered various tensions
in his life (most notably those of feudalism vs. capitalism, etc., already
discussed by Burke), and he found a way to turn those tensions into "sources of
aesthetic delight" (17).
J.
Given
all of this, Burke believes that Aristotle's Rhetoric can give us the most meaningful insights into
Shakespeare's beliefs.
1.
He
cites the "topics" that deal with persuading and dissuading audiences and
building up and tearing down character as a specific source of insight
(17).
2.
The
difference between the orator and Shakespeare is that Shakespeare "is aiming
simply to form our attitudes towards a set of imaginary characters, and to
exploit these attitudes for sheerly artistic ends" (18). This makes Shakespeare moving in the
emotional sense as opposed to the behavioral sense (18).
3.
Still,
the Rhetoric is all about how to inspire
fear, love, anger, etc., and Shakespeare uses his characters to create those
same sentiments.
4.
Thus,
the Rhetoric greatly helps us
understand Shakespeare's beliefs.
He was a master at translating social forces into dramatic
personalities, and letting the conflicts play out according to the conventions
of fiction. He was a master a
stirring up desired feelings. He
was a master at creating attitudes.
5.
Burke
sums up: "[Shakespeare's] plays repeatedly testify to a belief in the reality of a social order, or social
ladder, with a corresponding problemÉWhen one is placed in a particular social
order, to what extent is his [sic]
conduct to be judged in the absolute, and to what extent in terms of his
particular place in that order?And
though Shakespeare beyond all doubt believed in the ubiquitous reality of a social orderÉhe seems to have believed more
in its inevitability than its desirability" (19).
6.
All
of this leads Burke to assert a paradox.
Shakespeare's characters each embody an attitude or role. Yet each can only function in terms of
the situation which surrounds him or her, including other characters. Individual characters are, in a sense,
unique, but part of what gives them their uniqueness is their placement within
a group of other assorted characters (19).
K.
Burke's
closing question asks, "What, then, did Shakespeare believe" (19)? His answer is that Shakespeare believed
in the above paradox and its consequences.
As Burke puts it, "I think he necessarily believed in the overriding
persistence of this very problem" (19).
That is, Shakespeare's work bears out a belief than no character can
stand on his or her own, even as he or she is a unique creation. The consequences can be comedic, tragic,
grotesque, or something else entirely, but the problem is an inevitable one,
and it is illustrated in many of Shakespeare's dramas" (19-20).
II. "Psychology and Form" (Originally
outlined by Joshua Gunn. Page
numbers edited to match Kenneth Burke on
Shakespeare. Bracketed sections
indicate added comments).
A. Burke begins with a scene
from Hamlet to illustrate what he means by form [The scene discussed is Act 1, Scene 4, in which Hamlet is on the
lookout for the ghost of his father.
Burke attempts to show how the lines of Act 1, Scene portend the appearance
of the ghost in Act 1, Scene 5. It
is a specific example of form that leads into his general discussion of the
concept (21-22)]:
1. Form: "form would
be the psychology of the audience. Or, seen from another angle, form is the
creation of an appetite in the mind of the auditor, and the adequate satisfying
of that appetite" (22).
a) necessity of frustration:
form involves a "temporary set of frustrations, but in the end these
frustrations prove to be simply a more involved kind of satisfaction, and furthermore
serve to make the satisfaction of fulfillment more intense" (22).
[Hence, Shakespeare uses the
opening act of Hamlet to instill
within the audience a desire to encounter the ghost of Hamlet, Sr. This desire is temporarily frustrated in
Act 1, Scene 4, only to be fulfilled in a more satisfying way in Act 1, Scene
5].
2. Aesthetic judgment has been
sullied by the injection of "scientific criteria" (22).
a) has split "form"
from content ("subject-matter").
b) has split
"technique" from "psychology"
B. Burke distinguishes two
types of "psychology":
1. Psychology of information:
displaces the psychology of the audience with the psychology of the
"hero" or subject; specific details and bits of information are
valued over that of the whole. From this perspective, "one might denounce
Cezanne's trees in favor of state forestry bulletins" (23).
a) "Under such an attitude,
when form is preserved it is preserved as an annex, a luxury, or as some feel,
a downright affectation" (23-24).
[To cement his claims and further
distinguish the "psychology of information" and the "psychology of form," Burke
returns to Hamlet. He discusses both Hamlet's speech to the
players and Hamlet's confrontation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern over their
"playing him like a pipe." In both
cases, Burke argues, Hamlet's lines provide interesting pieces of information,
but they also forward the form of the play. Shakespeare's refusal to provide "mere
information" is part of his genius (24-25)].
b) The corresponding methods
of sustaining interest "are surprise and suspense" (27).
(1) "Suspense is the concern
over the possible outcome of some specific detail of plot rather than for
general qualities. Thus, 'Will A marry B or C?' is suspense" (28).
2. Psychology of form:
Eschews the informational details in favor of the whole, focuses on the desires
of the audience. Information is subsumed by the form (e.g., plays a
"minor" role).
a) Music is offered as the
example par excellence of the psychology of form: "Here form cannot
atrophy. Every dissonant chord cries for its solution, and whether the musician
resolves or refuses to resolve this dissonance into the chord which the body
cries for, he is dealing with human appetites" (26).
b) The corresponding method
of sustaining interest is eloquence, or "formal excellence"
(27).
C. Eloquence (or
formal excellence) is the end of art, and therefore is also the
"essence of art":
1. "Eloquence is not
showiness; it is, rather, the result of that desire in the artist to make a
work perfect by adapting in it every minute detail to the racial
appetites" (30). [Thus, Hamlet provides evidence of
Shakespeare's skill. Going back to
Chapter 1, the example of Shakespeare versus the modern Hollywood film is
appropriate here. Shakespeare
relied on words to both create scenes and instill certain feelings within his
audience. He provided a framework
and then filled that framework. His
work can be returned to again and again and appreciated for its creative
architecture. It does not rely on
simple suspense and surprise.]
2. Corresponds to Burke's
definition of "aesthetic truth:"
a) Aesthetic truth is
"the exercise of human propriety, the formulation of symbols which
rigidify our sense of poise and rhythm. Artistic truth is the externalization
of taste" (31).
b) Aesthetic truth is not
synonymous with scientific truth, since "the procedure of science involves
the elimination of taste, employing as a substitute the corrective norm of the
pragmatic test, the empirical experiment, which is entirely intellectual"
(31, n8).
3. Eloquence can be meticulous and precise,
however, it does not (cannot) succumb to the psychology of information.
III.
"Trial Translation (from Twelfth
Night)"
A.
Imagining himself to
inhabit the persona of the Duke, in Twelfth Night, Burke uses this essay to
dissect the opening lines of the play, providing an analysis of how they work
to mold the expectations of the audience.
B.
Burke,
going line-by-line, comments on the specific purpose of the play's first 20
lines.
1. Line 1: "If music be the food of love,
play on (33).
a. Burke uses the metaphor of the fetus in
the womb to describe the purpose
of this line.
b. He argues that the audience is lulled
into acquiescence, prepared to be immersed
in the world placed before them (34).
2. Lines 2-3: "Give me excess of it, that,
surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so
die" (34).
a. Here, the expectations of line 1 are
altered. No longer will the
audience gleefully
bask in the glow of the drama being presented for them.
b.
Shakespeare contrasts bodily hunger
(food) with soul hunger (music). The
second line claims that "in the nutriment of music, there is an added hunger
stirred up" (34). Shakespeare thus
introduces the theme of melancholy.
3. Line 4: "That strain again, it had a
dying fall" (34).
a. An additional modification is presented.
b. Through a "dying fall," Shakespeare
offers the opportunity of tuning out
the goings-on on stage. His
audience can become dead to them.
They can
become unresponsive (35).
4. Lines 5-7: "O, it came o'er my ear like
the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank
of violets, stealing and giving odour" (35)
a. Burke argues that these lines speak
directly to Elizabethan England (35).
b. Rather than being immobile and resigned,
Shakespeare is turning his audience
into hunters by invoking the smell of violets (36).
5. Lines 7-8: "Enough, no more. 'Tis not so sweet now
as it was before" (36). Burke
argues that Shakespeare continues the action-oriented theme begun in the previous
lines. Enough or the music. Business must begin.
6. Lines 9-14: "O spirit of love, how quick
and fresh art thou that, notwithstanding
thy capacity receiveth as the sea, naught enters there, of what validity
and pitch so e'er but falls into abatement and low price even in a minute" (36)! Here, Burke argues, the Duke fully
becomes the hunter already alluded to.
7. Burke closes by quoting lines 16-18, in
which Curio invites the Duke to hunt.
The
opening lines have thus produced a form that has lead to a fitting conclusion.
IV. "Antony in Behalf of the Play" (Originally outlined by Kristine Bruss,
Tim Behme, and Greg Schneider. Page
numbers edited to match Kenneth Burke on
Shakespeare. Brackets indicate
added notations).
In this clever essay, KB shows how literature
acts upon an audience by taking Julius Caesar's Antony and turning his internal
soliloquy into an external commentary, thus showing how the play produces its
effects. Here are some excerpts:
This reader-writer relationship is emphasized
in the following article, which is an
imaginary speech by Antony. Instead
of addressing the mob, as he is pictured in the third act of Julius Caesar, he
turns to the audience. And instead of being a dramatic character within
the play, he is here made to speak as a critical commentator upon the play,
explaining its mechanism and its virtues. Thus we have a tale from
Shakespeare, retold, not as a plot but from the standpoint of the rhetorician,
who is concerned with a work's processes of appeal (38). [Here, Burke again demonstrates a
preoccupation with the ways in which Shakespeare instills certain desires
within his audience. He makes clear
the connection between the Rhetoric
and Shakespeare. Antony is no longer
a character, but an orator, and Burke is dissecting his technique in terms of
both the play and Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience.]
Antony: Friends, Romans, countrymen . . .
oneÑtwoÑthree syllables: hence, in this progression, a magic formula.
"Romans" to fit the conditions of the play; "countrymen" the better to identify
the play-mob with the mob in the pitÑfor we are in the Renaissance, at that
point when Europe's vast national integers are taking shape. . .
(39).
All that I as Antony do to this play-mob, as a
character-recipe I do to you. He would play upon you; he would seem to
know your stops; he would sound you from your lowest note to the top of your
compass. He thinks you as easy to be played upon as a pipe (39). [The allusion to Hamlet is important to note.
Antony is again examined in terms of having a dual purpose in the
analyzed scene.]
Still, you are sorry for Caesar. We
cannot profitably build a play around the horror of a murder if you do not care
whether the murdered man lives or dies (40).
And when this play is over, Antony alone of the
major characters will live; for
you like to have about you such a man as
might keep guard at the door while you sleep. Given certain conceptions
of danger, I become the sign of safety. A little sunshine-thought, to
take home with you after these many slaughterings. . . .I grant that on this
last score I am not the perfect recipe. My author has provided
purer
comfort-recipes for you elsewhere (41).
We have clinched the arrows of your expectancy,
incidentally easing our obligations as regard the opening of Act IV. You
will be still more wisely handled by what follows, as our Great Demagogue
continues to manipulate your minds (48).
[Burke's approach in this essay is an extension
of his approach in "A Trial Translation."
He uses the method, adding in the element of speaking as Antony. The essay again demonstrates Burke's
admiration for Shakespeare as he illustrates Antony's significance as both a
compelling character and as a means for communicating with the Elizabethan
audience.]
V.
"Imagery."
A. Burke opens the essay by referencing
Caroline Spurgeon's Shakespeare's Imagery
(1935). He then uses a review of the work to
segue into his claim that an analysis of imagery
"serves better to point in the general direction of something than for acute microscopic divisions" (49).
B. Burke claims to have thought of
something like Spurgeon's Shakespeare's
Imagery (49). He also asserts the importance of
charting imagery.
1.
The proposal differed in that Burke
planned to use already-made concordances to
chart the imagery and connotations of that imagery in the works of various poets. Spurgeon charted Shakespeare's plays on
her own, beginning from scratch and
noting each image and its use in a given context.
a. Spurgeon's project is more thorough and
fulfilling. It can "disclose statistically
how Shakespeare frequently organized a play about a key or pivotal
metaphor" (51). He cites
examples. Hamlet is organized around the
ulcer, and Romeo and Juliet relies on
light imagery (51).
b. Burke postulates that Shakespeare may
have been conscious of creating such
organization (51).
2. Burke uses two main examples to explain
the importance of imagery and the critical
insights that a thorough examination of imagery can lead to.
a. Citing Spurgeon's work, Burke says, "She
notes, for instance, that when
Shakespeare would picture either war or hell, he relies upon the imagery
of noise of stench" (51). Thus,
when encountering a Shakespearean
description of a noisy, smelly city, the critic should ask, "Well,
which is it? War or Hell" (51)?
b. Burke compares Shakespeare's use of
silence to Poe's, arguing that the latter
feared silence, while the former embraced it (51-52).
c. Additional, minor examples include
Shakespeare's use of imagery in Cymbeline, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale (52).
3. Burke warns that imagery displays things
about an author that even the author may
not recognize. Authors should
"watch their metaphors," lest they
indict themselves
with their own symbols (note I, p. 49-50).
C. Stating a summary appreciation for
Spurgeon's work, Burke goes on to attempt to match
the historical arc of Shakespeare's writings with the major historical events
of Shakespeare's
life.
1. Burke claims that Shakespeare's early
plays commented heavily on feudalism.
He
gives examples.
a. He writes, "This we see clearly in the
feudal nature of the conflict in Romeo and Juliet. Feudalism was constructed about
metaphors of the family,
and this play involved a quarrel between families" (53).
b. Also, "The ideals of grace and elegance
embodied in his early plays were
integrally linked with courtly standards"
(53).
2. Moving on to the period of the
tragedies, Burke calls it "the period of crisis" (53).
a. The feudal way of life has come into
conflict with rising notions of individual
enterprise. Burke argues that
Shakespeare feels this conflict through
characters like Lear, "who loses his feudal property of kingship," and
Othello, "who loses his 'property in' courtly love" (53).
b. Burke claims that these characters
represent a profound crisis in Shakespeare's
writing career.
c. Hamlet
exemplifies the crisis in that it deals in uncertainty. The playwright
is supposed to provide certainty within a given context. Since Hamlet does not do this, Burke argues,
"Shakespeare is threatened with the
loss of his essential identity, his identity as playwright. His exposure to
the rise of new standards threatens to deprive him of his 'property in' the
craft of writing itself" (53).
3. Burke claims that "Shakespeare met the
crisis and surmounted it" (53).
a. The
Tempest provides evidence.
Burke argues, "The tempest ends as the
play begins. The play is the
aftermath of the tempest" (53-54).
b. The
Tempest shows that Shakespeare overcame his period of crisis. Further
evidence is provided by the imagery of sound in the play. Discord at
the beginning; harmony at the conclusion (54).
c. The release of Caliban signals
Shakespeare's readiness to abandon writing. He has accomplished his goals and can
exit the stage nobly (54).
D. Burke closes by addressing The Winter's Tale as another
culmination. He writes, "The Winter's Tale in its title attests
to connotations of subsidence. And
the author's dramatic
philosophy is rounded out by his somewhat pantheistic sense of 'universal undulation'
in which all spiritual and bodily movements are subtly merged" (55). Shakespeare's
philosophy has "rounded out," and, thus he can leave the writing craft behind
knowing he has left a masterful record of history, struggle, crisis, and
coping.
VI.
"Socio-anagogic Interpretation of Venus
and Adonis."
A.
Burke believes
that Shakespeare's narriative poem Venus
and Adonis is worth examining because it is a story of sexual courtship and
thus gives insight into "the courtly motive in literary works" (56).
1.
In it, "a
sexually mature goddess ardently courts a sexually immature human male" (56)
2.
The male refuses,
claiming to only be interested in hunting.
3.
Shakespeare
describes the hunt in courtly terms.
B.
Given
Shakespeare's courtly treatment of the hunt, there are three major characters
in the poem.
1.
Venus, the
goddess.
2.
Adonis, the
human.
3.
The boar, an
animal.
4.
Each character is
thus of a different "class" (56).
C.
Minor characters
"amplify the theme of courtship" and provide "dramatic comment" (57).
D.
Adonis' horse is
part of a symbolic "cluster" that represents Adonis' sexual desire. The horse represents animalistic desire
(57).
E.
Burke asks why
Adonis would resist Venus in the first place.
1.
Part of the
answer lies in the notion of "incest tabu" (58). The poem suggests that Venus is a mother
figure, and so it would be unnatural for Adonis to yield to her promptings.
2.
The forbidden
sexual passion is channeled into the act of hunting.
a.
Adonis fails to
distinguish between "maternal" and "erotic" women (58).
b.
Adonis' relation
to the boar is "vaguely homosexual" (58)
c.
Homosexuality and
the problem of the mother are thus symbolically merged (58).
F.
The mother-son
issues having been cleared away, Burke moves on to the real point of the
essay. He argues that the poem has
much to say about hierarchy, claiming that "goddess, boy, and boar represent
three different motivational classes" (59).
1.
Understanding
"celestial" terms and "social" terms and their various connections is important
for understanding the poem's use of imagery (59).
a.
The "celestial"
can be anything that implies "supernatural motivation" (59).
b.
The "social" is
the earthly.
c.
There is not a
straightforward divide between the two, as that which masquerades as
"celestial" can have social implications and vice versa.
d.
Venus and Adonis is a case in
point. Venus is a goddess, but she
is also "begging favors of an inferior" (59). She is not a goddess in any real sense. Burke argues that the poem is all about
the proposition "goddess is to mortal as noblewoman is to commoner" (59). Despite its celestial symbols, the poem
is about social order.
2.
Burke claims that
the interpretation could be pushed.
He works out an argument where the poem is translated into entirely
social terms, with the goddess symbolizing the upper class, the human the
middle class, and the boar the lower class (60).
3.
Burke then
backtracks, claiming that one need go so far in order to make a compelling
argument about the poem. He simply
wishes to point out the connection between social order and courtship as
contained within the poem (60).
G.
Burke argues that
the poem is not erotic in a strictly sexual sense. Looking beneath the sexual imagery, one
can better see the social implications of the poem.
1.
In analyzing a
series of lines, Burke claims that Venus is eventually belittled. Her status is downgraded, while Adonis,
due to his ardent refusal, is uplifted (61).
2.
Elaborating,
Burke argues that such developments are not purely sexual. Rather, they have very real social
implications. He says, "sexual
courtship is intrinsically fused with the motives of social hierarchy"
(61).
H.
A
"socio-anagogic" view of the poem, then, leads to the conclusion that Venus and Adonis seeks to promote social
revolution.
1.
Shakespeare uses
sexual terms to say things that could not have been said in "social or
political terms" (61). He argues
for a change in social hierarchy, but does with the imagery of courtship.
2.
Such an attempted
at reversal is especially apparent in the poem's closing lines, as Shakespeare
writes, "Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures" (62).
3.
Burke understands
that Venus and Adonis "could not be
exhaustively discussed in terms of social order alone" (62). But, he believes, "the ultimate motive,
whatever they may be, get poignancy and direction from the social order" (62).
4.
The poem's
emphasis on pride provides further evidence of its relationship to class and
order (62).
I.
Burke does not
necessarily believe that Shakespeare consciously constructed Venus and Adonis to cloak a program of
social revolution in erotic terms (63).
Stating this point, he moves into a discussion of how critics are to
interpret poetry.
1.
Burke argues that
the poet works with "charismatic" subjects (63). He writes, "The poet's symbols are enigmatic, that they stand for a hidden realm, a mystery" (63). Symbol
interpretation, then, involves attempting to unravel the mystery.
2.
Burke argues that
symbols in poetry connect to the "judgment of status" (63). Socio-anagogic interpretation involves
searching for and discovering those connections (63).
3.
Burke closes with
a definition of socio-anagogic criticism, writing, "In brief, the
socio-anagogic sense notes how the things of books and the book of Nature
'signify what relates to worldly glory'" (64). Such criticism is an attempt to uncover
the connection between poetic symbols and social hierarchy.
VII.
"Othello: An Essay to
Illustrate a Method"
A.
After briefly
describing the plays final scene, Othello's closing soliloquy, and Iago's role
as a "devil's advocate" (66), Burke moves on to define two Greek terms he
believes are essential for understanding the play's theme of cure.
1.
Katharma: "that which is thrown away in cleansing;
the offscourings, refuse, of a sacrifice; hence, worthless fellow" (66). Burke also points out that this term
provides the root for catharsis.
2.
Pharmakos: Synonym for Katharma. "Poisoner, sorcerer, magician; one who
is sacrificed or executed as an atonement or purification for others; a
scapegoat" (66).
3.
Burke argues that
Iago serves a necessary function in the play because he fulfills these
functions. Iago represents
Othello's inward struggles. He is
their externalization. Burke
writes, "Villain and hero here are but essentially inseparable parts of the one
fascination" (66).
4.
Iago and Othello
are tied together through Desdemona.
Othello fears the theft of Desdemona. She becomes his possession, and Iago the
part of him that fears losing her.
These three forces "wrestle with" each other on stage (67).
5.
The evidence for
this can be seen in the play's opening lines. "Thieves" are mentioned, and the theme
of robbery is brought out (67).
B.
Burke delves
deeper into an examination of Desdemona's role, interpreting her as a kind of
object.
1.
Burke claims that
Othello does not view Desdemona as an "aesthetic object" (67). Such a view would give her greater
power. As it is, she simply belongs
to Othello.
2.
This creates a
complex relationship between Desdemona and the audience.
a.
She is an example
of Coleridge's "extremes meet (67).
b.
To the audience,
Desdemona is an aesthetic object.
We recognize that she does not belong exclusively to us as individuals.
c.
Yet we also
recognize that she is "imitating" something (68). Burke argues that she is "imitating her
third of the total tension. She is
imitating a major perturbation of property, as so conceived" (68).
d.
Desdemona is and
is not and aesthetic object.
3.
Burke sums up,
relating the play to the Enclosure Acts, "whereby common lands were made
private" (69). Of the play, he
writes, "Here is the analogue, in the realm of human affinity" (69).
4.
Iago becomes the
scapegoat for all of this. He is
the devil that can serve as catharsis.
C.
Burke moves to a
new section titled "Ideal Paradigm."
In it, he outlines the "ideal paradigm for a Shakespearean tragedy"
(70).
1.
Act 1: "Setting
the situation, pointing the arrows, with first unmistakable guidance of the
audience's attitude towards the dramatis
personae, and with similar setting of expectations as regards plot" (7).
2.
Act 2 might have
one or both of two purposes.
a.
"While events are
developing towards the peripety, the audience is also allowed to become better
acquainted with a secondary character much needed for the action" (70).
b.
"Or might the
best way to approach the second act be to treat it as analogous to the
introduction of the second theme" (70)
3.
Act 3: "The Trap
is Laid" or "The Mock Disclosure" (72). Also, a related purpose, "gradual revelation of the character's
designs" (73). Iago's villainous
deceit of Othello is an example.
Burke does not list it here, but Act 3 of Hamlet, the "Play-within-the-Play," seems to fit both
characteristics as well.
4.
Act 4: "The Pity
of It." (73). Burke characterizes
it as "pity-pity-pity repeatedly" (73) and offers examples.
5.
Act 5: "The bringing of all
surviving characters to a final relationship" (74).
6.
Burke notes some
difficulties with his description of plot development, and he offers an
alternative of the five acts as a kind of initiation.
a.
Act 1: "The way
in." (75).
b.
Act 2:
"Pushing-off from shore" (75).
c.
Act 3: "The
principle of internality confronts its very essence. Here is the withinness-of-withinness"
(75). (Incidentally, I have no idea what that means. Hope you have better luck with it). Hamlet
is offered as the clearest example.
d.
Acts 4 and 5: We
are gradually returned to the starting point, but everything is essentially
altered. We are "released," having
undergone a kind of transformative initiation (76-77).
D.
Burke moves to
his third section, titled "Dramatis
Personae." It is an analysis of
characters begun by his assertion that the guiding principle should be the
"agent-act ratio" (77). That is,
each character acts according to his or her personality and together those
actions form a cooperative whole.
1.
Shakespeare was a
master at creating characters because he centered them around strong traits
that worked well with the main themes of his plays (77).
2.
Burke argues that
tensions should be identified and then characters analyzed to uncover how they
function to throw a specific tension into relief.
a.
Major characters
like the Othello-Desdemona-Iago trio illustrate the tension around property
(78).
b.
Minor characters
act in a way that reinforces its importance (78).
3.
Shakespeare uses
character weaknesses to push forward the events of the play. The characters do not stand alone in
this type of analysis. In contrast
to "novelistic analysis," the purposes of the author are more directly
considered here (79).
4.
Burke argues,
"Othello as 'Moor' draws for its effects upon the sense of the 'black man' in
every lover" (80).
a.
That is, Othello
is acknowledged as Desdemona's lord, but there is a "self-doubting" part of him
that leads him to believe he is not fit to be such (80).
b.
This leads to
terrible consequences.
c.
Burke has
reservations about the specific critic claim, but he believes it is the kind of
assertion that should be made by solid character analysis (80).
d.
The right kind of
character analysis considers the action of the play as a whole, not just the
actions of a particular character (80).
e.
Burke
differentiates between character and role (81).
f.
Burke goes on to
comment on the insufficiencies of the methods of other critics, using Iago's
wife Emilia as his example character.
5.
Burke then begins
a section on the critical shortcomings of "comic relief," arguing that it's
more complicated than that.
a.
"Comic relief" is
as much relief for the dramatist as for the audience (82).
b.
"When the
audience is carried beyond a certain intensity, it threatens to rebel, for its
own comfort. But the playwright
might engage it even here to, by shifting just before the audience is ready to
rebel. However, he [sic] will shift in ways that subtly
rebuke the audience for its resistance, and make it willing afterwards to fall
back into line" (82).
6.
Burke claims that
in the case of Othello, one character
(Emilia) states a principle in direct opposition to the assumptions on which
the play is built" (82). How can
that be explained, he asks.
a.
Burke argues that
audience members might resist the excessive (that word again) nature of a
tragedy. "One might think it unwise
of the dramatist to let their resistance be expressed on the stage" (83).
b.
Burke argues that
Emilia is a mere mortal among the larger-than-life figures of Desdemona, Iago,
and Othello. Her speaking of
resistance, then, is a de facto endorsement of the values of the play. It says, "Only lowlies like me refuse to
fall in line with the assumption of tragedy. These noble people accept it." (Contrast this with Burke's discussion
of Thersites in the Antony and Cleopatra
essay).
7.
Burke again
argues for his way of analyzing characters over others, using the examples of
Hamlet and Iago. Eventually, he
gets to the gem of a line "Shakespeare is making a play, not people" (84).
8.
Burke is not
wholly against the "novelistic analysis" of drama. But he cautions that such observations "are the preparatory material for critical
analysis, not the conclusions" (85).
9.
After hammering
away for several pages and bombarding the reader with reasons why his approach
is better than others, Burke mercifully moves on to another section.
E.
Section IV is titled
"Peripety," and in its first paragraph Burke says he plans to analyze "the ways
in which the playwright builds up 'potentials' (that is, gives the audience a
more or less vague or explicit 'in our next' feeling at the end of each scene,
and subsequently transforms such promises into fulfillments" (87).
1.
Burke claims that
the audience is invited into Iago's plot to deceive Othello. As such, "The audience is somewhat
invited to watch the plot as plot" (87).
2.
Burke moves into
a lengthy analysis of Act 3, Scene 3 of Othello,
detailing the ways in which Iago manipulates Othello and the ways in which
Shakespeare manipulates the audience.
a.
Importantly, he
points out that "Othello must show strong resistance, too. Otherwise, this bullfight will not be
spectacle enough" (90).
b.
He also
highlights a speech that points out the explicit values Desdemona is linked
with for Othello. They are
"Ambition, virtue, quality, pride, pomp, circumstance, glory, and zest in his
dangerous occupation" (92).
3.
Burke argues that
Act 3, Scene 3 reinforces the connectedness of Desdemona, Iago, and
Othello. It especially emphasizes
Othello and Iago as "related not as the halves of a sphere but each implicit in
the other" (93).
4.
Also, Act 3,
Scene 3 presents touches of fatality and death, offering a glimpse into to
final act tragedy. It serves to
mold the audience's expectations of death" (92).
F.
Burke moves into
the penultimate section, titled "The Wonder." In it, Burke opens with a discussion of
Desdemona's handkerchief. Amid references
to Aristotle and the notion of "accident," he ascribes to the handkerchief a
kind of "magic" that prevents the audience from resenting its accidental
discovery (93-94).
1.
Burke claims that
catharsis and wonder are the main attractive elements of tragedy (94).
2.
Burke argues
that, throughout the play's early acts, the handkerchief is associated with the
sexual (95).
a.
Some associations
are private.
b.
Some are more
public (95).
c.
Othello's
language in reference to the handkerchief further links it to magical qualities
(96).
3.
In a moving
conclusion, Burke returns to the notion of "reflexivity" (96). He argues that the play is an indictment
of truth-in-ownership. In it,
"there is also forever lurking the sinister invitation to an ultimate lie"
(96). The hanky then represents the
ease with which truth can be turned into falsity and forces us to examined the
frightening possibilities of loneliness.
Othello's suicide is the culmination of all of this. The ultimate in loneliness and
reflexivity.
G.
In the final section,
"Related Plays by Shakespeare," Burke closes by attempting to clean up earlier
sections and note how similar approaches can be taken to other Shakespearean
works.
1.
Burke recognizes
that his analysis is, in some sense, incomplete.
2.
He mentions
scenes he wishes he could have examined in more depth.
3.
He claims that
Aaron from Titus Andronicus "merges
important aspects" of Othello and Iago" (98). He argues that this offers support for
his earlier argument regarding their interchangeability.
4.
Burke points to a
speech in Troilus and Cressida that
shares similarities with the speech associated values with Desdemona. He claims "hierarchy" is important in
both (99).
5.
Measure for Measure seems like Othello in its use of the sexual.
6.
Burke closes by
mentioning that he has provided some details about the working of a single
play. He expresses the desire to
search for a motivational scheme that encompasses multiple plays and that
"might account for the shifts from one work to another" (100). In an especially well-written closing
remark, in reference to examining multiple plays, he says, "I admit that here
all tends to grow nebulous. I use
the word deliberately, thinking of great gaseous masses out of which solid
bodies presumably emerge. But we
should keep peering into these depths too, the farthest reaches of our
subject. For here must lie the
ultimate secret of man, as the symbol-using animal" (100).
VIII.
"Timon of Athens and
Misanthropic Gold"
A.
Burke begins by
wondering how one should approach Timon
of Athens, deciding that, to start, "let's force ourselves to decide
exactly what Timon of Athens is
about" (101).
1.
Burke summarizes
the plot, saying the play is about a man who falls into debt. His friends fail to come to his rescue,
and he becomes embittered. Formerly
"generous to a fault," he now dislikes all and dies alone (101).
2.
Yet, Burke
believes such a broad summary is not enough. The story of Timon overlaps with the
story of Alcibiades. In order to
show the correspondences, Burke outlines the story of Alcibiades act by act.
a.
Act 1: Alcibiades appears briefly with a line
that reflects positively on eating, a theme treated negatively in much of the
play (102).
b.
Act 3: Alcibiades
is banished. Shakespeare allows the
audience to think that Timon is the one whose punishment is being debated. There is an ambiguity between the two
characters (102).
c.
Act 4: Alcibiades makes friendly gestures to
Timon but is rejected and insulted (102).
d.
Act 5: Timon dies
and Alcibiades wins a victory.
Alcibiades claims Timon was noble (102).
3.
The character of
Apemantus is also important, even though some doubt that Shakespeare authored
the scenes in which he appears.
Burke argues, "Apemantus serves to keep the play from falling simply
into contrasted halves" (103).
4.
Burke summarizes
the important aspects of the play.
a.
"Excessive
universal generosity, exemplified by Timon" (103).
b.
"A
correspondingly excessive universal misanthropy, represented prophetically by
Apemantus before Timon's crisis and culminatively by Timon after the crisis"
(103).
c.
"A factional
warlike opportunistic element (represented by Alcibiades) that holds to neither
of such absolute attitudes, but has definite, limited ends, and will readily
make peace if they are attained" (103).
B.
Burke points out
that Timon is a difficult character to sympathize with (104).
1.
The loyalty of
Timon's servant Flavius is one of the few things that keep Timon sympathetic in
the eyes of the audience.
2.
The play is
"almost wholly concerned with relations among men" (104). The only women present are courtesans
and dancing girls. As Burke writes,
"Fittingly, there are no mothers, sisters, or wives in this play" (105).
3.
Burke describes
Timon as a "brutally end-of-the-line character, his life coming to a close in
rabid talk of human rot" (105).
4.
Flavius is the
only character who can induce the audience to pity Timon, and he does precisely
that late in Act 4 (105-106).
C.
Having detailed
the play's basic plot and examined Timon's character, Burke opens a new section
by arguing that Timon is important as a villifier.
1.
Burke mentions
three distinct kinds of "primary 'freedom of speech'" (106).
a.
Invective is a
kind of "helpless rage" (106).
b.
Lamentation is
"undirected wailing" (106).
c.
Praise is the
third (106).
2.
Invective is the
most important as far as Timon is concerned.
a.
While each of the
three forms of speech can lead to rebuke, invective is most likely to do
so. Therefore, invective "must soon
be subjected to control" (106).
b.
Still, invective
does have social purposes. It can
be cathartic (107).
c.
It is difficult
to create intentional invective because it "quickly comes under the control of
self-protective repression" (107).
Therefore, if a playwright can create genuine invective, he or she will
have created something intrinsically interesting, as long as he or she can keep
it within certain tolerances.
d.
Many of
Shakespeare's characters demonstrate this kind of eloquent invective. Lear and Coriolanus are two examples
(108).
e.
Yet, no one
demonstrates it quite as well as Timon.
3.
Burke compares
Timon to Midas, arguing that, when Timon rails against an evil, he claims that
the whole world exemplifies that evil (108). Everything Timon touches turns into an
example of universal corruption.
4.
Timon, then, has
a certain appeal as a villifier, but the playwright must be careful not to too
greatly offend audience sensibilities.
D.
Burke moves on to
discuss Timon's situation within the play as problematic.
1.
The possibility
is hinted at that "Timon is surrounded not by friends but by flatterers" (110).
2.
Burke calls this
the "problem of substance" (110).
We often seek to connect with others by being useful to our friends, but
"this means of establishing a bond with them is by its very nature suspect, for
the attempt to please or reward friends can become but a way of attracting
parasites" (110).
a.
This is an
important problem for Burke, and he connects it to Marxist notions of property
(110). Private accumulation "severs
one's bonds with others while also putting a person in constant jeopardy of
loss" (110).
b.
Shakespeare's
play embodies the opposite principle.
Timon's generosity gave way to the problem of debt, and his "friends"
abandoned him. As Burke argues,
"There is a such in which any such generosity would be a squandering, and in
the last analysis unrequited" (111).
c.
Burke
acknowledges that the problem in its specifics does not apply to all, or even
many, it should "in principle" apply to everyone (111).
3.
Thus, Burke
argues, Timon becomes obstinate and so too does the play itself (111). Invective gold comes to replace Timon's
lost fortune, thus Burke calls the notion of gold "intensely pejorative" within
the play (111).
E.
Burke summarizes
his argument with nine points about Timon
of Athens.
1.
"Choice of a
character with a vile tongue, as likely material for a drama" (112).
2.
"Absolute
misanthropy as a motive about which to organize his cantankerousness" (112)
3.
"Disappointment
to justify his misanthropy" (112).
4.
Prior,
overgenerous, prosperousness, to set the condition for his disappointment"
(112).
5.
"Two closely
related characters, each like-minded in a notably different way, and both
shunned by him" (112).
6.
"Friends, guests,
creditors, servants, and various other supernumeraries added, to meet
incidental requirements of the plot" (112).
7.
"Since invective
is motivationally fecal, gold provides a term that straddles both the theme of
money and the theme of misanthropy" (112).
8.
"Beastly imagery
in general, and dog imagery in particular serve as a variant source of
misanthropic metaphors" (112).
9.
"The closely
related imagery of eatingÉfits well, as connoting corresponding kinds of
appetition, either obsequious or rapacious" (112).
IX. "Shakespearean Persuasion: Antony and Cleopatra"
A.
Burke opens with
a statement regarding the "psychological tics" or authors, claiming that many
often return to favorite images (113).
1.
For many authors,
these "tics" are easy to spot.
2.
The case is
different with Shakespeare, as he is always using numerous, complex images in a
variety or ways (113).
3.
Reading Antony and Cleopatra, however, struck
Burke in an important way, and his analysis yielded some thoughts on the
ordering of the play (113-114).
4.
Additionally, he
was struck by the role of persuasion in the play, and he promises to use the
essay to give some thoughts on the long-questioned role of rhetoric and persuasion
in poetry (114).
B.
Burke reviews the
plot of Antony and Cleopatra act-by-act.
1.
Burke takes care
to juxtapose the affairs of the Roman state with the affair of Antony and
Cleopatra in his summary.
2.
He comes to the
conclusion that "Love is in essence an Empire," and claims, "In Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare works
with that motivational trend, grandly" (114).
3.
Burke argues that
Shakespeare uses the theme to make his audience feel grand. They all have some connection to love,
and he "translates the theme of love into terms of imperial ostentation"
(115). By turning a theme that
everyone can relate to into something as grand and majestic as Rome, Burke
argues that Shakespeare's audience "will gladly go along with him, in a benign
conspiracy of self-admiration" (115).
4.
Shakespeare
portrays Octavius nobly as well, in order to build up Antony's character by
giving his rival certain noble traits (115).
C.
But Burke
believes that Shakespeare does much more than simply translate love into grand
terms.
1.
The character of
Lepidus provides an example.
a.
Lepidus is
ridiculed within the play for trying to gratify both Caesar and Antony.
b.
His ridiculed
upgrades Caesar and Antony.
2.
Shakespeare is
also cleverly reversing a theatrical tradition.
a.
As Burke writes,
"In the Cornelian 'theater of admiration,' only political themes were deemed
wholly worthy of the style. Love
could be introduced but secondarily, as a motive that helps complicate the
plot" (116).
b.
Shakespeare
brilliantly "reverses the order," describing love primarily in terms of
politics (116).
D.
Burke points out
that Elizabethan England was and "Empire on the make," and uses that claim to
further a conception of the play that matches Shakespeare's method to the
historical situation and expectations of his audience (116).
1.
Since historical
circumstances are reflected in personal relationships, and since the audience
is living in an imperial time, there is a sense in which personal relationships
are imperial (116).
2.
Antony and Cleopatra is
compared with Romeo and Juliet.
a.
The difference is
that the lovers Antony and Cleopatra are associated with rising empires, or
political states. The lovers Romeo
and Juliet were associated with feuding families, a remnant of a bygone
political age (116).
b.
Still, the
endings are similar, both involving mistaken suicides.
c.
Also, Antony
marries Caesar's sister, meaning "family motives significantly complicate the
political ones" which also happens in Coriolanus
(116).
3.
So, the play acts
out the principle that "Implicit in human relations under conditions of
emergent empire there are forms of
empire as such" (116).
a.
Yet, again, we
have Shakespeare complicating things with and added twist.
b.
Shakespeare's
building up of love is complicated by his choice to write about Cleopatra's
death in terms of simplicity.
c.
Burke describes
Cleopatra's death as depicted "in terms of a woman nursing a child, facing
death defined euphemistically in terms of sleep" (117).
d.
Yet, Burke argues
that the simplification is itself presented grandly, concluding "Its denial
depends on its affirmation" (117).
Shakespeare's grand portrayal of love as empire is thus complicated by
virtue of being simplified. It's a
paradox that points again to Shakespeare's skill.
4.
Burke makes the
case that Shakespeare's uses various devices to allow his audience to identify
with Antony and Cleopatra.
a.
The frequent
references to "eunuchs" highlight Antony's sexual skills by comparing him to
men who have means to fornicate.
All the men in the audience are therefore equal to him by virtue of
differing from the foil (118).
b.
The women in the
audience can relate to Cleopatra's "frailties" as well as to the closing image
of her as nurse (118-119).
5.
Burke returns to
what he previously called the "problem of substance," (See: Timon of Athens essay), this time proposing
a variation called "the paradox of substance," as represented by Antony and
Cleopatra.
a.
Antony and
Cleopatra cannot stand on their own, but they audience is made to believe that
they alone embody the grandeur of Rome and Egypt respectively.
b.
Summing up the
paradox, Burke claims, "One cannot separate the intrinsic properties of a
character from the situation that enables him [sic] to be what he is" (120).
c.
Burke relates
Shakespeare's telling of love in terms of empire to his earlier notion of
"socio-anagogic analysis," giving a divine flavor to worldly hierarchy (121).
6.
Burke claims that
Shakespeare's imperial love story is both aggrandizing and hubristic (121).
a.
On the one hand,
it is relatable. On the
other, it is pretentious and excessive.
b.
Burke returns to
the idea of "excess" (See Introduction as well as Timon of Athens).
Shakespeare's play shows the dangers of the most extreme form of love,
allowing the audience to distance themselves from the characters (121-122)
E.
Burke ruminates
on whether or not the play can be reduced to a Freudian Love and Death, coming
to the conclusion that Love, Death, War, and Sleep are all closely related, and
the relationship between Love and War is evident in the play (122).
1.
Burke writes,
"Antony as warrior is what imparts
the political dimension to the love relationship" (122).
2.
Burke compares
and contrasts Shakespeare's treatment of war with Plutarch's, noting how the
former uses war to connect Antony and Cleopatra (123).
F.
Moving on, Burke
enters into a discussion that revolves around the author-audience
relationship. He explores the ways
in which dramatist address the various objections audiences may have to their
plays (123).
1.
One way to
address audience objections is to place a statement of them into the mouth of a
minor character.
a.
Homer does this
with Thersites, who oppose the Trojan War, but he persuades the audience by
Thersites a completely objectionable character in all other respects (123-124).
b.
Shakespeare is
different. "Shakespeare can allow
even a strong charge against Antony's heroics to get stated" (125).
c.
Burke compares
Shakespeare's stating of objections to setting up a department store. "You could put in a counter here or
there to gratify some particular set of customersÑand if you weren't too
emphatic about it, with those who wanted other goods it simply would not
register" (125). He claims this is
also a good way to start building an empire.
2.
Shakespeare's
kind of theater was a complex one, and as a result he was able to address
audience objections without putting them in the mouth of a disliked character.
G.
Burke closes with
a list of topics he wishes he could have addressed in more detail.
1.
Burke finds the
way Shakespeare plays with the masculinity of Antony and the femininity of
Cleopatra to be interesting. He
wishes it could be further explored, especially as it relates to the serpent
theme and the theme of Cleopatra's overall capriciousness (125-126).
2.
Burke is also
intrigued by the notion of pity, especially as it plays out in Act IV. Comparisons between Shakespeare and
Plutarch are again mentioned.
3.
The sexual
connotations and double entendres used throughout the play, especially in terms
of Cleopatra's dream of Antony in Act V (126).
4.
The death of
Antony and the notion of Fortune or Fate as it relates to the play as
intentionally produced by Shakespeare and as a product of historical
caprice. That is, Shakespeare was
"fated" to live in emerging imperial England (127)
5.
All of these can
be scene as instances of persuasion, but Burke wants to fully conclude by examining
the play's "reflexivity" (127).
a.
The suicides of
the main characters are the most obvious evidence of reflexivity, but it shows
up elsewhere (127).
b.
In Act I, Scenes
2 and 3, the news of the death of Antony's wife Fulvia induces reflexive
reactions in both Antony and Cleopatra.
c.
Burke goes on to
list several other references to the theme, all made by minor characters or by
major characters in reference to minor characters.
d.
Burke closes by
claiming that all these instances may be an attempt at persuasion, but they may
also transcend it to become part of the form of the play. He invokes the symmetrical foils of Timon of Athens in both Shakespeare and
Plutarch, claiming that traces of the themes of Timon of Athens (see above outline) are visible in Antony and Cleopatra.
The above sections were outlined by Brett
Biebel unless otherwise noted. The
following sections were outlined by Joe Bartolotta.
KB on Shakespeare
"Corolanius—and
Delights of Faction"
Part I:
KB opens by locating the play in a historical context having
been premiered after the rioting due to the Enclosure Riots (an event he
explains in detail at the end of the essay), thus the context of the play is
one of patricians versus plebeians, albeit in Rome rather than London.
Nonetheless, Burke argues that Shakespeare is "playing up" the
tensions between the classes (130). KB thinks the degree to which Coriolanus
exhibits hubris as a noble is so excessive that the audience will not think of
him so much as a scapegoat for the impending tragedy. KB believes Shakespeare
has emphasized Coriolanus as a character whose failure has been his inability
to outgrow his childishness in his affinities for his class, his family and his
country (134-5).
KB also discusses the role of Menenius in "shaping the
audience's sympathies." (137) Burke examines the similarities and differences
between Menenius and Corolanius, settling that Menenius is both a character who
brings some events of the play to a comic light and for introducing a
discussion of a "body politic" to the play (138).
Part II:
KB considers the timeliness of the play. He contends that
while Coriolanus lacks the qualities of a modern dictator to gain a popular
movement (due partially through his open disdain toward the plebeians).
However, KB does identify several themes (individualism, class, family) that
are timeless, and that all of these themes are motivations that entangle to
make a "motionless knot" wherein Corolanius will not be able to untangle the
motives but only get satisfaction by doing
something with this "knot" (143).
Part III:
Burke reconsiders Corolanius as a "railer," that is, the
character who keeps "mixing things up" (142). KB also assesses the character of
Coriolanus through his assessment Timon of Timon of Athens. Burke concludes
that the audience, although they may despise what Corolanius says throughout
the play is still drawn in to see what becomes of him.
Part IV:
Burke offers a culmination of his criticism, asserting
Coriolanus is:
1.
Primarily a cathartic vessel residing
"in the excessiveness with which he forces us to confront the
discriminatory motives intrinsic to society as we know it"
2.
The catharsis is
"expressive" as the individual comes into conflict with the demands
of family, class and nation.
3.
The play contains a controlled
environment in which the repressed may feel they have a voice but generally
does not challenge the greater social hierarchy.
4.
As a scapegoat, the audience
recognizes that he comes to his proper end by the end of the play.
Comment:
Burke discusses the Enclosure Act in brief. The Enclosure
Acts dispelled many farmers from their common lands (that is, unowned property)
as private landowners "enclosed" on the property. Burke also discusses the
heroic properties of Corolanius in that he "never matures" (146). Burke also
briefly notices some important differences between Shakepeare's Corolanius and Plutarch's.
"King Lear: Its Forms and Psychosis"
Part I:
Burke considers how the popularity
of Lear perplexes him, as he does not understand how the play appeals to
younger audiences. He believes that the play's absurdities make it attractive
alluding to Tertullian's credo quia absurdum to guide his analysis (152).
Simply put, the play has so many absurdities that tax the audience's
willingness to go along with the evolving story that they "are a positive
factor in the plays success, when it is a success" (152). KB
also offers a brief summary of the plays plot points (153).
Part II:
Burke considers the plot of the
play, What is it about? (155). He writes of the basic outline of the
plot, but becomes settled on exploring the topic of abdication. It is no
different from being about "oldsters" who move to Florida, abdicating
some office at home and so the play demonstrates a "paradox of substance"
in that the identities of the characters become defined by what they have given
up, especially is this true with Lear (158).
Part III:
KB asserts one of the most apparent
tensions in the play is that of loyalty versus disloyalty, and that the elderly
and deposed king is an even greater tension in indentifying his social
standing, especially after Lear has divided his kingdom (160-1). KB assesses
the loyalty of Cordelia and Kent toward Lear as he treats them harshly as
demonstrating the "purity of their motive" to be loyal to Lear (161-2). KB
likewise examines the disloyalty of Goneril and Regan (162).
Part IV:
Burke revisits the theme of
abdication, this time asking what motive the dramatist has in making the story
a tragedy. He identifies Lear as a
character within a sacrificial context. He must fall so he can realize the
loyalty of Kent and Cordelia (163).
"Notes on Trolius and Cressida"
This article is actually a response
written by Burke to a graduate student at Washington University in St.
Louis. Most of the piece (for it is
not an "essay" in the best sense of the word) addresses particular
points in the student's paper. The student's paper, we are to glean from this
text, is centered on the transformation of Cressida (168-9), a focus Burke
finds interesting and engaging. However, Burke thinks the paper should also
place some greater emphasis on the "Trolius-Cressida plot" (167).
"Why
a Midsummer Night's Dream"
I:
KB explains that he will focus for
the most part on "the standard distinction between the two queens"
(173). KB also argues that the treatment of the "woodsy atmosphere" suggests
that the play is presented from "a noble patron's point of view" (174) and that
this social gap may have influenced Shakespeare's presentation of the
mechanicals.
II:
KB explores the meaning of a dream
as part of the setting for this play. He alludes to Dante, seeing the dream as
a place that begins a consideration within the characters about some
overarching problem (175). KB sees
the dream as potentially embellishing and exploiting the social values of the
non-dreamworld within the dreamworld--which the dream helps mask the
conventions of the existing social structure(177).
III:
KB contrasts the play in part to
Coriolanus, as in Coriolanus the main character openly detests the
populace, in the comedy of the Midsummer Night's Dream, the characters
of many classes "take it easy" in the context of the dream (177-8). The dream obscures the distinctions of
class, especially between the Queens, Titania and Hippolyta (180). Through the
construction of the dreamworkd through the play, KB thinks lower-class
audiences members would find the play appealing (181).
IV:
KB explores A Midsummer Night's
Dream in the context of humanism versus technologism. He assesses technologism
as a move to address problems caused by technology with more technology, rather
than moderation in the use of technology (182). He views the play as "fanciful
embodiment of the Humanistic attitude" (184).
"Notes
on Macbeth"
I:
The first part of this essay has very
little to do with Macbeth, KB instead addressing "conventional
form" as he responds to a friend's objection to his essay "Psychology
and Form" (187-9). Burke considers form and the presentation if new
information through examples of Charles Chaplin in Verdoux and Aristotle (as mediations on surprises and form) and
Hitler (who is argued to keep new information and surprises to a minimum in his
writing) (189-90). Burke introduces the next part of the essay as an
investigation into the "conventional form" he observes in Macbeth (193) while going on to discuss conventional form in other
dramataic texts from the western tradition.
II:
KB explores the
actualizations of the "kill" in Macbeth, considering how the play is set up
with "vulgar" and "grotesque" characters carrying out acts of murder (206), and
how the context of Shakespeare differs from that of the "vulgarians killing"
(207) seen at Burke's on television. KB argues that murder in Macbeth has a different psychological
quality in its executions and how it effects the audience than modern
television.
III:
Subtitled
"Regicide," KB returns to "Psychology and Form" by addressing the psychosis of
regicide. He sees royalty killed, one after another (Duncan, Lady Macbeth,
Macbeth himself, and through the "fiction of the play," Banquo) and he argues
at the end of the essay that the theme of regicide is meant to give the
audience a "tragic pleasure" (210).
Appendix
The appendix
serves as a compendium of other references to Shakespeare in Burke's works. The
Appendix is organized chronologically by his published volumes, identifying the
references in their chapters and subsections.
Reviews
The following is
a working list of reviews about this book from a variety of scholarly
disciplines including rhetoric, drama studies, Shakespearian studies and
Burkean studies.
Battista,
Andrew. Rev. of Kenneth Burke on
Shakespeare. K.B. Journal (Online).
http://kbjournal.org/shakespeare
Clark, Ira. Rev.
of Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare. Comparative Drama. (2008) 42.2:234-7.
Eskew, Doug.
Rev. of Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare.
Rhetoric Society Quarterly.
38.3:341-3.
Grosholz, Emily.
Rev. of Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare.
The Hudson Review. (2008) 61.3.
Harries, Martin.
Rev. of Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare.
Theater Survey. (2008) 49:305-7.
Keyishian,
Harry. Rev of Kenneth Burke on
Shakespeare. The Shakespeare Bulletin.
(2008)
26.3:107-12
Salomon,
William. Rev. of Kenneth Burke on
Shakespeare. College Literature. (2009) 36.1:160-2.
van Oort,
Richard. "Kenneth Burke's Shakespearean Anthropology." Rev. of Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare. Anthropoetics (Online). (2008) 14.1.
http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1401/1401vanoort.htm
Voss, Tony. Rev.
of Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare. Shakespeare in Southern Africa. (2008)
20:73-5